Free The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton Page A

their internal allegiances were all so fluid, not to mention deceitful. It was an old saying that there were as many factions as there were ex-physical humans inside ANA, and he never had encountered any convincing evidence to the contrary. That resulted in groupings that ranged from those who wanted to isolate and ignore the physical humans (some antianimal extremists wanted them exterminated altogether) to those who sought to elevate every human, ANA or physical, to a transcendent state.
    The Delivery Man took his assignments from a broad alliance that was fundamentally conservative, following a philosophy that was keen to see things keep running along as they were, although opinions on how that should be achieved were subject to a constant and vigorous internal debate. He did it because it was a view he shared. When he eventually downloaded, in another couple of centuries or so, that would be the faction with which he would associate himself. In the meantime he was one of its unofficial representatives to the physical Commonwealth.
    The station terminus was a simple spherical chamber containing a globe fifty meters in diameter whose surface glowed with the lambent violet of Cherenkov radiation emanating from the exotic matter used to maintain the wormhole’s stability. He slipped through the bland sheet of photons and immediately was emerging from the exterior of a corresponding globe on St. Lincoln. The old industrial planet was still a major manufacturing base for the Central worlds and had maintained its status as a hub for the local wormhole network. He took a transit tube to the wormhole for Lytham, which was one of the Central worlds farthest from Earth; its wormhole terminus was secured at the main starport. Only the Central worlds were linked by a long-established wormhole network. The External worlds valued their cultural and economic independence too much to be connected to the Central worlds in such a direct fashion; with just a few exceptions travel between them was by starship.
    A two-seater capsule ferried the Delivery Man out to the craft to which he’d been assigned. He glided between two long rows of pads where starships were parked. They ranged in size from sleek needle-like pleasure cruisers to hundred-meter passenger liners capable of flying commercial routes as far as a hundred light-years. There were no cargo ships; Lytham was a Higher planet and did not manufacture or import consumer items.
    The
Artful Dodger
was parked toward the end of the row. It was a surprisingly squat chrome-purple ovoid, twenty-five meters high, standing on five tumorlike bulbs that held its wide base three meters off the concrete. The fuselage surface was smooth and featureless, with no hint of what lay underneath. It looked like a typical private hyperdrive ship belonging to some wealthy External world individual or company or to a Higher council with a diplomatic prerogative. An ungainly metal umbilical tower stood at the rear of the pad, with two slim hoses plugged into the ship’s utility port, filling the synthesis tanks with baseline chemicals.
    The Delivery Man sent the capsule back to the rank in the reception building and walked underneath the starship. His u-shadow called the ship’s smartcore and confirmed his identity, a complex process of code and DNA verification, before the smartcore finally acknowledged he had the authority to take command. An airlock opened at the center of the ship’s base, a dint that distended upward into a tunnel of darkness. Gravity eased off around him and then slowly inverted, pulling him up inside. He emerged into the single midsection cabin. Inert, it was a low hemisphere of dark fabric that felt spongy to the touch. Slim ribs on the upper surface glowed a dull blue, allowing him to see. The airlock sealed below his feet. He smiled as he looked around at the blank cabin, sensing the power contained behind the bulkheads. The starship plugged into him at some animal